kale's Soulbound: The Takari Saga
by Eowyn the Fair
Summary: Book 1: Young Takeru and Hikari, thrust together by her unexplained illness, must unravel the ambitions of an old enemy and learn to use a wondrous gift given to them to forestall a horrific disaster.
1. Chapter I

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Note: Before anyone asks, yes I do have permission to post this. See his author profile (12224) if you don't believe me. ~~ Eowyn.

Prelude

Ten months have expired since the events chronicled in Season One...

The greatest of the celestial beings stood stoically in midair some hundred feet above the dwelling of humanity, his arms folded across his massive chest as he waited. The creature, who only once before in his eternal life known any discomfort, shifted to the side to relieve a feeling of what he could only describe as... imbalance. And as he looked down at the naked scabbard at his side, he was distinctly reminded of what was causing the sensation.

It was only a moment later when he was joined by another of his kind, who acknowledged him with a quick bow of his head. "It is done, then?" the first asked, his voice rich and authoritative.

"It is, my brother... my captain," the second returned in melodic tone, and the first noticed that the other was no longer in possession of the auroral bracer that had adorned his left forearm since their inception.

"To the human child... the female, then?"

The second gave another bow. "I have taken your disapproval into much consideration, my brother. I will concede that it is not the most logical choice. But this is a human affair, to be determined by them, and she was the most _human _choice."

The other had already conceded the point, and saw no need to do so again. "It is well that it was left within your hands then. Try as I may I cannot fathom the human condition. You placed it under the guise we had agreed upon, I will assume."

"As did you with the boy. It is familiar and precious to her, and will give her no pause to question what it truly is." He paused. "At the very least, there is much to be said for their propinquity."

The first did not question if 'their' referred to the blessed items or to the children. Instead he looked at his brother, and reminded him for the last time. "She is _not _what he is, and is now weaker than most."

That was, of course, indisputably the case. "But she is not without strength of her own..."

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Chapter One 

Two years later...

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Darkness... 

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"T.K. Come here!" a frightened, female voice demanded of him, unusually stern in its owner's desperate need for haste.

The boy stirred slightly, twitching in his sleep. And after a moment he echoed the words that he knew he must; a stage performer who had spent hours of time committing his lines to memory. This was how it had happened once upon a time, now happening all over again...

His sleep-addled brain tried desperately to sort out the reality of the situation. _Happened then? Or just happening now?_ Panic and chaos reigned all around him as he heard the clear, steady voice rise above the confusion to focus his thoughts. _"I want you to take Kari and get out of here!"_

He remembered looking at her blankly. She was the kindest, wisest, most grown-up person that he knew, but what she was asking would mean abandoning her to near certain capture... or perhaps even death. Alone. He had hesitated at first, giving an almost imperceptible shake of his head. _"T.K. please!" _she had shouted at him._ "You're the only one who can protect Kari!"_

That had struck at him, and deeply, because he had known it to be the truth. He turned to glance over his shoulder at Kari, and saw that the younger girl was just as frightened as he. But for her, he would have stayed. He would have stayed at Sora's side and would have fallen with her. But to do so would also mean to desert Kari, and such a thing suddenly seemed innately wrong to the young boy. While wiping away tears that had pooled in his eyes at the desperate situation he had swallowed, hesitating, before...

"Okay, Sora," he repeated the words in his sleep, his lips quivering even now. "I... I promise that I'll do whatever it takes to protect Kari."

The boy shot straight up in bed, several strands of blond hair falling in front of his blinking eyes as he came fully awake. With his heart beating rapidly he threw off his sheets and turned towards the window, seeing the full moon outside illuminating the city below. "Oh no," he whispered quietly, knowing by instinct alone what was happening. "Kari..."

T.K. rubbed the sleep from his eyes and inched quietly out of his bed, then turned and padded his way across the room as the tender, golden glow of the crest of Hope illuminated his steps. He stopped by the desk atop which his telephone sat and pulled up a chair. Then the boy sat down and lay his head across his folded arms in order to more closely watch the phone. And he waited.

*****

"_Angemon! No!" she cried, as their last hope for rescue tumbled headlong from the sky._

"Angemon! No!" T.K. echoed.

"I'm scared," she whimpered to the small boy on the rope below her.

"He'll be okay," he replied in turn, his words meant to comfort but delivered in such a voice as to only heighten her panic. "But you've got to keep climbing."

She had only seconds to act, perhaps only seconds to live. But no time at all to think. "Okay," she said automatically, reaching up for another handhold... only to find that there was nowhere further she could go. The rope had been severed cleanly by a sword thrown with uncanny accuracy by the dark clown, leaving only a few bare threads to trail off in the wind.

Kari looked down in horror. "You've reached the end of your rope!" the insane creature taunted back, his maniacal, sinister laughter echoing far down into the valley below.

"Let go of him!" Kari cried as the clown grabbed little T.K.'s leg, threatening to throw him down to his death.

"Let go, Kari!" He'll get you too!" the young boy shouted up at her as she grabbed his hand.

Had the situation not been so desperate, she would have said that it had sounded like the most gallant thing she had ever heard. He was far closer to death than she. "No! I won't let you go T.K."

The clown, dangling like an acrobat by one hand, peered quizzically at the pair. The exchange clearly was not what he expected. But in the end it was of little interest to him as he hacked again at the rope, severing it in one stroke. "Sounds like you two are falling for each other!" he snickered, tauntingly.

And then falling they were. Plummeting down, down, to the rocks below and certain death. She lost her grip on T.K.'s warm fingers, and fell further. Looking up, she tried to reach him for him again, but the young boy had vanished and was nowhere in sight! T.K. … her only hope… gone.

"But this isn't how it's supposed to happen!"

The girl's own shouted protest woke her and she sat up in her bed, panting heavily and drenched in sweat. Her wide eyes darted around her room, calming only after she had verified that it was just the same as when she had fallen asleep. That had all happened almost three years ago, but try as she might she could not shake the memories…and they were always the same memories.

She slid noiselessly down from her bed to avoid waking the others in the house. She had perfected such nighttime stealth when she had shared a room with Tai, though the pair had not done so for almost that same three years. But despite his absence she stole quietly across the room, her steps guided only by the nervous and flickering glow of the crest of Light.

The original crests were long since destroyed and accepted as useless. Symbols, only, of what strength the children had within themselves. It had therefore come as a great surprise to the girl when, one night when she despaired of falling asleep for fear of the dreams, she had found the crest of Light resting under a gentle nimbus atop her pillow. She could not explain its presence there, at that time, but nevertheless a great feeling of peace and familiarity had welcomed her as she had touched it. The dreams were less haunting that night, and for many nights thereafter. It had taken some time and a bit of amateur sleuthing before she discovered that T.K. alone had received his crest back as well, and under similar circumstances.

She had reached the table with the telephone. She picked it up, and then sat it back down with a thought. She knew that she would call him. She must. She knew now, at least in her heart, that there was to be no other healing for her. As if to stress the thought, her body shook with a sudden spasm and she was forced to muffle a cough. Her family could not be allowed to hear her. Her very life depended on it.

She picked up the receiver and then paused again. _Where would he be? _she wondered. _With his mother or his father? _After a momentary pause as if to gather its strength, the failing emblem on her chest gave a renewed effort and sent out a call to its faithful companion, and she smiled as Hope's distant reply came to back to her. He was with his dad, and Matt.

"Kari?" the boy whispered in a conspiratorial voice as he picked up the phone, though she had not even heard it ring on her end.

"T.K." she exhaled thankfully in response. Even his voice took the piercing edge from the pain, though to purge it entirely would require much more. "It's happening again."

"I know. I felt it. Same plan as always?"

He was so perfect. They both were well aware of everything that this would cost him; the pain, the fatigue, the risk... yet he hadn't hesitated for a moment. As before, he would buy her life with some of his own.

"Same as always," she whispered in response, fighting down a horrid sense of guilt.

He gently placed the receiver back on the hook and rose from his seat, easing open the door to his room and moving out to the living quarters of their apartment. He glanced around furtively to make sure that his father and Matt hadn't heard him. Being awake at this time of night _might _be possible to explain -- he had done it sometimes during the summer months when school was out -- but to explain why Kari sneaking over at two o'clock in the morning? That would be another issue altogether.

The night was hot, and he went to the bathroom and nervously ran some water over his neck and shoulders, watching in the mirror as it beaded and ran down his arms. He had grown a lot in the past two years, and was now as tall as Matt had been during the time of their adventures despite being a year younger than his brother had been at the time. The strong light of Hope's emblem was now gold against his chest, marking him with honor for once again taking up Kari's cause.

Something had been wrong with the girl since they had returned to the real world, almost from the start. Two days after returning home from the adventure (which most of the world now passed off as "overstated" or "mass hysteria"), she had taken very ill. Her parents and brother Tai had been devastated, keeping her inside for the entire time and even at one point rushing her to a hospital. None of the doctors could find anything wrong, and after several days of observation during which she only had gotten worse, had sent her home with instructions to call the moment that something new occurred.

It had continued like that for several weeks, during which time the other five older children had been allowed only short visits. But she continued to fail even in the presence of her friends, except when _he _had finally been allowed to come.

The adults had thought that he was too young to see her as she was, and too immature to accept what now seemed inevitable. Yet it was only a few, astounding moments after he arrived that she was again on her feet and announcing that the pain had gone. The others had looked skeptical at this, but then she was up and about and seemingly the same girl that she had always been, and just in time. Only a week later school had started back up, and she and T.K. had thankfully been assigned to the same class.

But as more time progressed, she had found that the longer she was away from the boy, the deeper her relapse into illness became. Soon the sapping of her energy was so acute that if she went more than a couple of days away from him, she became so weak that she again feared for her life. She had explained this to him, and though not entirely understanding, he rarely strayed from her side.

T.K. smiled as he remembered the merciless teasing that came from the other boys in his class at having found a "girlfriend", taunts that still continued to this day and that she must have endured as well. He didn't object. He found that his adventure in the other world had changed him, perhaps matured him a bit, so that the childish taunts of his classmates sounded just that: childish.

And bit by bit, now not only did he not mind the taunts, he found that he actually enjoyed thinking of Kari as a girlfriend. He knew that at least half the time that they spent in close proximity to one another was out of necessity, yet he knew that he would have tried to find a way to make it happen even without a purpose. He felt close to her. Love? He wasn't sure. Outside of familial love, he wasn't even exactly certain what the word meant. But there was certainly something that he felt for her that he didn't feel for any of his other friends.

The crest warmed gently against his bare skin, prodding him out of his recollections and to the front door to welcome the girl. He returned to it a unspoken acknowledgement and thanks, not wanting to miss one second than was necessary away from her side. Not with such stakes involved.

The boy's eyes widened in dismay at how terribly pale she was as he eased open the door. Even when she'd been on her supposed deathbed, she hadn't looked so weak. Now, the light in her eyes was almost completely extinguished and her muscles were quivering with faint, apparently uncontrollable spasms. She took a single, exhausted step inside the doorway and fell into T.K's arms, her breath escaping from her lungs as she did so.

In his alarm at seeing her this way he almost shouted for help, before remembering that he mustn't. To do so would be disastrous, and would almost certainly result in the girl being removed from his evidently therapeutic presence. He leaned her back in one arm and smoothed long tendrils of hair out of her eyes, watching as some of the pink color came back into her face as his fingertips brushed against it. "Oh no... _Kari_. How come you didn't call before it got this bad?"

Her eyes fluttered open again at his touch. "T.K.?" she whispered.

"I'm here," he answered gently, pressing a palm against her cheek. The girl exhaled a small sigh of evident relief as her face slowly lost its deathlike hue to the boy's restorative touch, and she struggled to sit up. 

"T.K., I... I can't keep doing this to you. I thought that if I could only withstand it this one time, that maybe it wouldn't come back again. I don't want you to have to go through this for me anymore."

The boy hesitated, then silenced her with a finger to his lips. With a nod of his head he motioned her towards his room, easing the front door closed behind them as they left. And after checking to make certain that her back was still to him, he slowly massaged the tingling sensation from his hand where he'd touched her face.

She was already sitting on the side of his bed as he entered the room, and the Crest of Hope gave a brief glimmer at her that might have passed for a wink of recognition if it had come from a human. Kari's hand was on her chest, and she was taking obvious steps to consciously control her breathing.

The boy dropped the hand that he'd been rubbing as her lashes slowly pulled back to reveal her tear-filled eyes to him. With a reassuring smile in response he bent over and pulled the spare pillow from beneath the bed and held it to his stomach. If his touch and his comfort was what she needed to be well, that was what she would have. And he would give it gladly, forgoing all trouble and only wishing that he could do more.

He eased down at her side and placed a gentle, tentative hand on the curve of her neck. And at his touch her pain continued its retreat with a suddenness that even belied its initial onslaught. "Kari, don't... please don't give up. We'll beat this, whatever it is. If this is what it takes to keep you well and from getting hurt anymore then you know that I'll always be here to do it."

His tender words did nothing to assuage the horrid feeling of guilt gnawing at her stomach, and came close to making it worse. There was never a word of complaint from him, no matter how much this transfusion of his life caused him to suffer. The first times it had been necessary only for him to be in the same room with her to restore her, the next few, a nominal holding of hands had sufficed. But now, without complete physical contact, it was simply not enough. "T.K.?" she asked through hot tears that contrasted strongly with the great relief that his touch brought.

"Kari, please don't cry. I made a promise a long time ago that I'd protect you and I will. It... it isn't as bad for me as it is for you."

The girl had a sudden vision of how he always looked after one of these nights. Waking up in the morning exhausted and unmistakably drained of all his boyish energy. And though he continually and repeatedly denied it, she could see that it hurt him as well. He could never lie to her. But now the brave steadfastness in the tenor of his young voice made a new wave of admiration wash over her as he pulled her back into his arms and down onto the bed. The girl sighed, then surrendered to necessity as she reached around and pulled him closer until they were like two curved spoons set alongside one another.

"I don't deserve you, T.K.. I really don't."

He didn't even pause. "You're right, you know. You deserve a lot better than me," he answered, forcing a chuckle even as he felt the first onset of pain as it was siphoned from her body and into his own. He bit down hard on his tongue and closed his eyes to forestall the shame of his crying until she was asleep, then waited until it passed and continued. "Now try to sleep, Kari. You'll be better in the morning, you'll see. You've just got to be... better." And then the boy slowed and regulated his breathing, trying to calm his mind and place it far away from his body.

Kari nestled back in the protective arms surrounding her and choked back a thankful sigh as she was at last able to breathe without the stabbing ache in her chest, and she spent the next several moments just enjoying the sensation of being awake without being in pain.

And when she finally fell asleep as well he was there for her in her dreams, reaching for her. The golden daylight of the crest of Hope engulfed him as he closed his eyes. Below her she heard the boy's partner groan and rise to his feet. _"T.K." _the holy creature gasped. Then, _"Angemon, Digivolve to…"_

*****

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"T.K.?" an explosive voice from the foot of his bed demanded. The young boy bolted upright, bleary eyes staring out from behind a messy shock of blond hair and directly into the face of his older brother, Matt. He winced at the crushing pain in his chest, but said nothing in response. This was the moment that he had foreseen with dread ever since this had begun. They'd been caught.

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"Kari?" Now Matt's eyes almost leapt out of his head, and the older boy genuinely looked as though he was really going to pass out. Or maybe he looked as though he was going to kill them. T.K. couldn't really tell for sure.

Matt's eyes shifted from one child to the other and back again for several minutes afterwards, his brain trying to make the connection between what he was seeing and what it meant. And when he didn't care for the endpoint that his brain kept coming up with, he instead demanded of the pair, _"What the hell are you two doing?"_

"Matt, we're right here. You don't have to yell," his little brother admonished, concerned for Kari but still terrified of what was about to happen.

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"I d… don't have to yell?" the other demanded in a stammering voice, just as loudly as before. In all honesty he hadn't even thought about yelling... it was just the only way that it could come out.

"Matt. This is all my--" started Kari, but T.K. cut her off at once. He'd long ago come to the conclusion that when they were caught, he needed to take the blame for it. "She needed me, Matt."

The older boy stammered wordlessly for a few moments before he could finally speak coherently again. Fortunately, this time it was to be at a more reasonable volume. At least, T.K. hoped that was what the soft sigh from his brother signified. After another moment, he affixed the pair with a look that meant nothing good. "Dad's gone to work. Maybe you should come out to the living room and we can talk. And T.K.?"

"Yeah Matt?"

"Put a shirt on."

Over the next hour, the two younger children tried explaining to T.K.'s brother exactly what was happening, and what had been happening since they'd returned. Matt's eyes rolled in disbelief several times during the explanation, but to his credit never once did he interrupt. It took some time in the telling, but after that time the two brought their story to an end and awaited the verdict.

Matt didn't speak for a moment, and then sighed again. "If it was anyone but you two -- _anyone_ -- I'd have said that no one could possibly have come up with a worse lie, especially if they'd had that long to work on it." The boy paused and chewed on his bottom lip for a moment. "But I'm not at all sure that either of you has ever told a lie before, so I'll take what you say for what it is… for now." He picked up a phone that sat beside him and pressed a number on the speed dial. After a moment he started talking. "Izzy? Yeah, it's me. I need a favor and it's kind of urgent. Call the others and get them over here as soon as you can. Yeah. No. No, my dad's. Listen, I'll explain when you get here, okay, but either way this turns out we've got a big problem on our hands."


	2. Chapter II

Chapter Two

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In the digital world:

"Hello? Angewoman? Hey, where are you?" Patamon piped repeatedly as he darted around the pond where he had left the other. He was worried about her -- a lot. These last couple of years since the children had left had been rather grim for her, and if anything had happened while he was away… well, he just wouldn't be able to forgive himself.

"Patamon?" he heard a frail-sounding voice answer from a thicket near the edge of the water. The little flying mammal fluttered quickly over to the side of his counterpart, alighting on a low branch to examine her more closely.

Angewoman was not well. Deep, dark circles surrounded her eyes as she lay on the ground, barely able to move. Many of her wing feathers and some of her fine hair had fallen out, and that which was left remained affixed to her body with very little conviction. But by far the worst aspect of her condition was her ragged breathing, so shallow and forced. Digimon simply weren't supposed to stay like this for so long.

Angewoman turned her face away in shame as she saw her small friend begin to examine her. She had an idea of how she looked, even if she stayed away well from the water to keep from seeing her reflection again. Once had been enough. 

She had been Angewoman for virtually every minute of the last two years, not spending any twenty four consecutive hours as Gatomon or Salamon, and what most didn't realize was that there was a reason for not staying in their higher forms of evolution for any extended period of time. It was simply too strenuous, requiring an enormous expenditure of energy. Yet she knew, she instinctively felt that Kari was in danger all of that time, and her body just would not revert to its lesser forms.

Patamon dropped an undersized piece of fruit at her feet. "I'm sorry it's so small. It's really all that I could carry."

The angel's withered face managed a feeble smile as she reached a trembling hand forward to take the fruit from the ground. She had grown so weak that she could no longer gather sustenance for herself, and was forced to rely on her small friend to provide for her. "Did you find out... anything?" she mumbled weakly and without hope. Why should this time be any different than the previous hundred?

Patamon squirmed uncomfortably in response. This time _was _different... but only because he had gone against the other's explicit instructions and had gone to the best source that he could find. But this source was notoriously… cryptic, and no matter what form she wore, Angewoman didn't like relying on him. "Kind of," he answered, his eyes dodging to the side.

Angewoman's body may have been deteriorating, but her wits were still sharp. She saw his eyes and heard what he'd not said. "From where?"

Patamon sighed, his ears falling limply at his side. "Okay, I _know _you don't like listening to him," the little creature said defensively, "but he's the only one left to help. It took me all day to find him, and the first thing he asked was why I hadn't come sooner. I won't let you die just because you're too proud to listen to him, even though he might be a little crazy."

Patamon blinked, the words just out of his mouth having made their way to his ears. There. It was finally out. No matter how bad the situation had gotten, both of them had always refrained from mentioning the chance that she might die from this. He licked his lips, then continued, "He said that if you really cared about your friends, especially Kari, that you'd listen to him."

Angewoman turned her face away with a sigh. "All right, Patamon. What did he say?"

*****

The little fellowship had finally managed to drift over to Matt's house as the blond-haired boy continued to study the younger children opposite him. Not once during the entire time they'd been waiting had either of them left the other's side. They just remained there in silence, throwing quick little glances at one another as they continued to hold hands. Matt wasn't sure whether this was done out of affection, necessity (if the story that they had just told him was to be believed), or both, but he didn't make an issue of it.

Finally the group had been assembled, with the exception of one. "Where's Tai?" asked Sora.

"He said he'd be here," responded Izzy, who was setting up his laptop on a nearby table at Matt's suggestion. "There were a couple of things that he had to get done first."

"Mind if I get something to drink, Matt?" Joe asked, padding at his forehead with an already damp handkerchief. Matt shook his head and waved absently towards the kitchen. "Whatever's in there," he responded.

"Get something for me too, Joe," said Sora. The older boy nodded and began to root around in the refrigerator.

Mimi looked with concern at the young couple on the couch. T.K. was obviously in pain of some sort, his hands trembling and his top teeth clenched firmly around his lower lip. He forced a smile to feign normalcy when Kari looked in his direction, but failed miserably. The girl tried to wrench her hand free from his, but T.K.'s grip was firm... almost as though he were holding on to her for dear life. The slightly older girl removed her pink hat and sat down beside Kari on the couch, and looked at T.K.'s brother. "What's this all about, Matt?"

The older boy ran his fingers through his blond hair, resigned to the fact that there was just no delicate way that he could put this. "Actually, I guess it might be a good idea to tell you this before Tai gets here, considering the way it has to start." He cleared his throat and stood up. "Ahem... well, you see... this morning... uhm... when I went to wake T.K. up, I saw... I mean, they said... those two--" He bowed his head in frustration and addressed the floor, jerking his thumb at the pair on the couch. "They've been sleeping together."

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"What?" exclaimed Sora and Izzy in unison, she dropping her glass of soda with a shattering sound on the tiled floor and he tipping just a bit too far in his chair and tumbling backwards out of it. Joe showered the room with the drink that he had just taken but had not had time to swallow yet, and four pairs of eyes turned on the two youngest.

Mimi, as usual, still had her mouth two seconds ahead of her brain. She hugged Kari. "Oh! Does this mean that you two are _official_? I'm _so _happy for you, Kari! He's such a great guy, and… wait a minute. Aren't you two a little young for that sort of thing?" she asked, pulling back and releasing the girl.

T.K. was puzzled at the response and his cheeks reddened beneath the bewildered stares of his friends. The boy honestly didn't understand the wrath of his brother or the uproar which had just occurred. (Ironically, and though the boy didn't know it, it was to have been that very week that his father was to have given him "the talk".) Sure, he knew that he probably shouldn't be sneaking girls into his bed in the middle of the night, but the exact reason why was still a couple of connections away in his head.

But little Kari was somewhat, if not much, more knowledgeable about the reason for the stunned reaction, and blushed an even deeper shade of red.

"No, no," stammered Matt, as Izzy righted his chair and Sora set to cleaning up broken glass. "If I'm to believe them, they didn't do… anything…ah, like _that_." He was, after all, only fourteen himself, and didn't feel at all comfortable with starting off along those lines. He cleared his throat. "Izzy? You up yet?"

The boy nodded, and sat waiting to type Matt's message to their contact in the digital world. He had reasoned that it had to be something there, since the nightmare was always configured around that one day.

Matt then began going over what he had been told, misunderstandings or gaps in the story being filled in by either Kari or T.K. Izzy pounded furiously away on his keyboard, attempting to transmit the entire text of the conversation to Gennai. Matt's version was a summary, and so even after the interruptions it took him about half an hour to finish. "Sent?" he asked Izzy. The red-haired boy nodded, and turned his chair around to join the impending conversation.

"And it only gets better when you're around T.K.?" Mimi asked, clapping her hands together twice. "How _romantic_."

"Oh grow up, Mimi," snapped Sora. "This is serious." She knelt down and looked at Kari. "Is it the same thing that you tried to tell me about the other day?"

Kari nodded, and Sora was filled with a sense of guilt. At the time, she had simply brushed it off as…

"Okay, I'm here," said Tai, opening the door and racing into the house. He bent over with his hands on his knees, moaning and gasping for air. "What's the emergency?"

Matt looked nervously at his friend, who had been considered their leader for so long. If the others has reacted _that _badly... "Maybe we should talk alone for a little bit," he said, gesturing to the balcony outside the sliding window.

"Me too," said Joe, and each of them grabbed one of Tai's arms and walked him out of the room.

Izzy turned back to his screen, awaiting a reply. Mimi, meanwhile, stared at the developing scene on the balcony, interested as to what Tai's reaction would be.

"Kari?" whispered T.K. "Why's everyone so upset? I knew they wouldn't be happy about it, but we're just trying to get you better, right?" His voice sounded so tired and weak, but still he had only a smile for the girl.

"I... I think they're just worried," she said, not fully disclosing the truth to him. _Although he has a right to know, _she thought. She promised herself that she would ask Matt to explain things to her young friend before she left.

Meanwhile, Sora continued to fight off the feeling of intense guilt. Kari had tried to explain this to her two weeks ago, yet she had convinced herself that the little girl had been talking about something else entirely. How she needed to be near T.K. How she felt like she was slowly dying without him. Maybe a bit overdramatized for someone that young, but it _could _have been questions about love. The fact that T.K. had come to her with that line of questioning earlier in the day hadn't helped.

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"Hey, Sora?"

"Yeah, T.K.?"

"How... how do you know if you're in love with someone? I've heard you and the others talk about it sometimes, and I think I need to know."

"Why now?"

"Well…" he had said, pausing. She smiled even at the memory. He simply looked so adorable there, watching at his own feet as they scuffed along the ground. _"There's this girl…"_

"And?"

"And… I like her. A lot. But I don't know how to tell if I love her. Or how to tell her if I do."

"So why are you asking me about it?"

He looked up, surprised and obviously not having expected that question. "Because you're so smart. I mean, Izzy's smart, and Joe's smart, but not really like that. I don't think they'd know how to answer me."

"I don't think you should be talking about it with me at all."

"You don't? Who should I talk to about it?"

She smiled and took off his hat, running her fingers through his beautiful golden hair and kissing him on the cheek. "When you figure that out, and when it's the hardest thing you've ever done to talk to her about it, then you'll have both answers." She put his hat back on as he moved away from her, blushing and surprised at the display of affection.

"And T.K.?"

"Hmm?"

"If Kari isn't careful, I'll steal you right out from under her nose."

The boy had run off, laughing, at that point. That last statement had not been entirely in jest. If it had not been for the differences in their ages, and the fact that Matt and Kari would both skin her alive if she even thought about it, she might have considered him boyfriend material. Now that he was coming closer to maturity, he was easily as handsome as Matt had been at that age, but with an innocence and genuine kindness that was impossible to resist. Yet since her mind had been on that train of thought she had given similar answers to Kari when she came asking questions, yet it now appeared that the subject matter had been altogether different.

"They did _what?"_ Tai quite literally screeched from outside, and those inside heard it easily through the glass. Matt and Joe both restrained the stronger boy, and began talking very quickly until he calmed down and they were able to make him understand.

Izzy's computer gave a beep. "Hey guys, it's ready!" he called, and everyone with the exception of T.K. and Kari moved to gather around him. The youngest boy was just suddenly too exhausted to rise, and even too tired to stop Kari as she removed her hand from his to let him keep more of whatever it was that she was leeching from him.

__

You aren't thinking, children (Especially you, Izzy):

__

What was taken from Kari on that day?

What can T.K. give to her in abundance that the rest of you cannot?

Who stole it from her?

Why has she not gotten back her own?

What can a human not live one moment without?

"And why can't you ever just come out and give a straight answer?" Tai yelled at the screen, to Izzy's dismay picking up the laptop and shaking it furiously.

"Settle down, Tai," said Sora, placing a calming hand on his shoulder. The boy looked at her and flashed what he hoped was a dazzling smile, and Izzy took the opportunity to snatch the computer back and set it down. Sora froze Tai with a scowl and redirected his attention to the screen. "Anybody have any ideas?"

They all sat looking for a moment, Kari joining them. T.K. had fallen into a fitful sleep on the couch, and his brother kept a distracted focus on him while attempting to decipher the message on the screen. The little boy had danced around the issue of exactly what happened to him when Kari came to him for help, but what he had said had been enough to make Matt somewhat nervous at seeing him in such pain.

"Three 'whats' a 'who' and a 'why'," restated Joe in a clinical voice.

"The dream?" said Sora. "The people in her dream. The 'who' has to be T.K., Angemon, or Piedmon."

Izzy frowned. "Well that's obvious. It has to have been Piedmon. T.K. or Angemon wouldn't hurt her."

"I think the answer to the second one should be love," pouted Mimi. "It just sounds so beautiful."

"But I love her too!" shouted Tai in protest. He blushed and turned to look at the others. "Well I do. She's my sister, after all."

"Kari? Did you lose anything that day? I don't remember anything about that. Of course, I _was _a doll at the time," Joe muttered.

Kari thought back. "No. Not that I can remember. But it was kind of hectic."

"Well, if the answer to 'who' is Piedmon, then it kind of implies that whatever it was, he took it away from her," pointed out Matt. "Did he ever take anything from you, Kari?"

Again she thought back. "No, he never got close enough to touch me. The only one he ever grabbed was T.K."

"What _can _a human not live one moment without? Joe?" asked Sora.

"Medically? Nothing that you can lose that quickly. Blood, I guess. But there's something about that last question… something I know I've read somewhere…"

They sat around for some time, trying to come up with a set of answers that all of them could agree on. T.K. awoke several hours later, complaining to Matt (when Kari was out of the room) about the constant pain that he was in. Matt gave him some aspirin, but it still didn't seem to help.

Finally, after a day of very few ideas and much frustration, the sky outside started to darken. "I'm going to have to leave pretty soon. I've got a ton of stuff that I've got to study for," said Joe.

"More summer school?" queried Izzy, rolling his eyes.

"Me too," said Mimi. "I told my mom that I'd only be a little while."

"Okay," nodded Tai. "We split up for now, but we meet back here early tomorrow. Kari, I want you to stay here, in case something else happens. I'll tell mom and dad that you're with Mimi. Matt, can you keep her out of sight?"

"I can, but I might not have too. Dad said that he'd probably be gone for a couple of days, and gave me his cell phone number. I'll know in a couple of hours, that's when he's supposed to call."

"Kari?" asked Tai in an anxious voice while looking at his sister. "Just…be safe. Call me if you need anything. _Anything_." Then he glanced at T.K. "Well, anything that I can give you, that is." He sat down beside the youngest boy. "And T.K.? I'm sorry, so sorry, that I was so upset with you earlier. Whatever you're doing for her, just, please keep doing it, okay?"

T.K. smiled weakly in response. "I will, Tai. I made a promise."

And one by one they left while Matt shuffled the youngest pair off to T.K.'s room, then returned to his own to await the call from his father.

*****

Later that night, when all the others were asleep, the lone child who was still awake knelt in his own room and caressed the object in his hands. An object of power. An object of evil. And the bright, shimmering sword of Piedmon was now his own. Left on the battlefield after the fight, he had retrieved it and had gone to show the others. But then a jealous feeling had overcome him, and without knowing why he had wrapped it in one of the dark clown's magical cloths and watched it shrink until it was little more than a toy. When he had carried it back to the real world it had slowly returned to its original size, until he was ready to use it to take revenge on those who had cast him into the magical gate. _No, cast Piedmon into the gate!_ Cast… ME… into… the…


	3. Chapter III

Chapter Three

Joe nibbled thoughtfully on the end of his already well-gnawed pencil as he thumbed through his school texts, his gangly arms folded on the table in front of him. He had seen that last reference before, or something just like it somewhere, he was certain. If only he could remember…

Philosophy. Ugh. But it seemed like that was the most reasonable place to look, and he'd avoided it long enough. The last of the questions definitely sounded as if it had that sort of twist to it.

__

There! he thought triumphantly, stabbing his finger down in the middle of the page as the words almost leapt off the page and into his face._ 'A man may live a few weeks without food, a few days without water, a few minutes without air... but a man cannot live even one moment without hope.'_

He _knew_ that it hadn't been a reference to a medical term. If it had been something that was medically wrong with Kari, the doctors would have found it the first time that she had gone in. He sat back, and stared at the ceiling with deep contemplation as he walked himself through the riddle. "So Kari lost hope, and she can't go on living without T.K. there to give it to her?" he demanded of himself. It sounded far-fetched, but then, he'd accepted long ago that there were some things that his scientific mind just couldn't reason with.

Especially about Kari and T.K. There was something about the two of them that often transcended science, something that he wouldn't understand no matter how many times he turned it over in his mind. So right now the important thing was to get this information back to the others and then decide as a team where to proceed with it.

Joe stifled an enormous yawn. _In the morning, _he amended. Kari was with T.K. They'd be okay for one more night.

*****

__

In the digital world:

"What?"

Patamon nodded to his friend. "Don't ask me to explain it, but that's what happened. I saw it. She had already given herself up for dead. Gennai said he thinks that when that happened, she lost something important inside of her that binds the human body and spirit together. Like her life is just bleeding away from her without hope to anchor it in her body." He frowned. "Or something like that. This would be a lot easier if you'd come and talk to him yourself."

Angewoman didn't even dignify that suggestion with a response. "Any of us, or all of us, could have gotten killed dozens of times before that," she protested along her original line of thinking. "Any of us -- including her. Why didn't this all happen before then?"

"I don't know, but you didn't see her just after I saved them. I did. I had just become MagnaAngemon. I thought that my transformation would have astounded both of them, but she hardly even noticed. T.K. spent the entire flight to the ground staring at and congratulating me, but she never once took her eyes off of him. As if she'd just latched on to him in her last moments of life and stayed latched on even after the danger had ended."

"Then what she lost, what T.K. is giving her, and what… what she can't live without?"

"Hope. The spirit inside humans that won't let them just lay down and die when things are at their worst. In that moment when Kari and T.K. had the rope cut out from under them, and there was no one to save them, she lost hope. If I'm right, it was the only time in the entire journey that she was sure that she was going to die."

Angewoman sighed in frustration. "I'm still missing something here. I mean, I suppose that I can see what he's trying to tell us even if it does sound like complete nonsense. He's a human and understands more about them than I do. But Piedmon's long since dead. Why would Kari still not have a grip on her soul when the danger from him passed over two years ago?"

To that question, Patamon could do little but shrug.

*****

"T.K.?" Kari asked quietly, closing the sliding door to the balcony behind her as she stepped to his side. A gentle draft of wind, smelling of rain, ruffled the young boy's hair as he sat alone on the balcony to watch the strongest stars peek through the clouds.

He turned his head and studied her with weary blue eyes. He had known that she was coming. Whatever this sickness was, no matter how much it put him through, it was almost worth it. It was as if they were bonded in some way. Every heartbeat of hers that he felt in his own chest, he was there to push it along and to keep it from failing. He joined with every faltering breath and eased it into her lungs.

She sat down beside him and took his hand, pulling it into her lap. He smiled. This time there was no pain, no weakness. Only a simple physical bond between them that it seemed they would be allowed to share without her life hanging in the balance. She had been well that night, showing no signs of the illness. With the tips of her fingers she absently started to draw patterns on the back of his hand. "What are you thinking about?"

T.K. blushed, though he hoped the darkness hid it from her. _Now, or before you came out? _he thought. "Just… just thinking about Gennai's questions," he answered hesitantly, tripping over the words.

And then she smiled through the near darkness at him; a small, genuine smile that washed his weariness almost completely away. He couldn't lie to her. "That's not exactly true, is it?"

__

Sora was right. This is hard... what had she said? The hardest thing I've ever done to talk to her about it? That was true enough. He'd never felt so awkward or embarrassed in his entire life. 

The boy turned his eyes back to the stars to try to make it easier. "Not exactly."

__

~But, Sora. Everyone says I'm too young to be in love with him.~

~Why?~

~Well... we're only eleven. Tai told me that he was at least thirteen before he even felt in love with a girl.~

~And why would that make it true for you? No one can tell you if you're in love, and anyone who tells you that you're not old enough is simply assigning an arbitrary age to it. Did Tai wake up on the morning of his thirteenth birthday and suddenly it was all right for him to be in love? You may not have noticed, Kari, but you and T.K. are much wiser and more mature than others your age.~

~Who said anything about T.K.?~

Sora had responded with a very knowing smile. ~_You didn't have to.~_

"T.K.?" Kari asked gently, taking his face in her hands and turning him to look at her. "Can I ask you something?"

The boy could feel his hair standing on end and noticed a lump forming in his throat as he turned. "Is... is it what I think it is?" he stammered nervously, drawing a hesitant nod in response. He tried to swallow the lump in his throat, but it wouldn't move. "Yes," he whispered in response, a word so quiet and hushed that she could not have heard if her face hadn't been so close to his on a night as silent as this one.

Without either of them saying anything further, their faces started inching closer together. Soon a tuft of his golden hair was tickling her forehead, something that sent delightful shivers down her back. Closer, and she could smell the cherry-flavored soda on his breath. The scent at the time was more delicious than she could have imagined, more wonderful than a bouquet of flowers.

T.K. could see his image reflected in her eyes. He looked as nervous as he felt. But again the crest under his shirt warmed, calming him and pressing him forward.

The back door suddenly slid open. "Hey. What are you two doing up this la--?"

The two sprang apart, both turning to look at Matt. T.K.'s older brother put his face in his hands. Things had just gotten _much_ more difficult. "Guys, you two can't be doing this. Not now, _please_."

"Matt? Ah, we weren't…"

"T.K., stop. Listen. If she's going to be in your room -- _in your bed _all the time then this just isn't the right time for this."

Now T.K. was feeling a little upset, still not understanding. "Why not? You tell me, Matt!"

The older boy sighed. He looked at Kari. She had asked him earlier how much T.K. knew about what sometimes happened between young men and women in bed together, and it wasn't much. Matt had promised to tell him soon…

"Kari, I think that you'd better go lay down, if you're feeling okay. I need to talk with T.K. about a few things," he said.

The girl nodded and turned to go inside, pausing to look at T.K. one last time. Some of his innocence was about to be stripped away because of her, and she wanted to remember his face as it looked now to see if there was any palpable difference in the morning.

"All right, T.K..." sighed Matt as he closed the sliding window behind her.


	4. Chapter IV

Chapter Four

__

Anger... No, more than anger. Maddening fury. Disbelief, and a deep sense of shame. He had been defeated. He, with all of his power and all of his strength, with all of his minions to command and while standing on the very cusp of victory, had been defeated. And by who? What great power or dread principality was it that had brought him to this sorry state?

__

The two babes of the group.

His soul had drifted alone through the barren wastelands of the void, hungering for something... anything. A sight. A smell. A sensation of any sort to relieve the tedium of nothingness. He would even welcome a touch of pain to tell him that he still existed. _How long have I been here? Seconds, or an eternity? _Was it death? He had been cast through the gate created by the archangel, known a second of blinding pain, and then had found himself here. Empty… Cold… Formless… _I should have won!_

"Hey, guys," cried a voice that came from somewhere, but was not his own. "Look at this. Look what I found." And then, with a brilliant flash of daylight, he could see again. Not through his own eyes, but through the eyes of another. _My sword. He has my sword._ And there Piedmon found a medium for his will to remain alive. For whatever reason, one of the children had picked up his sword. The child obviously didn't know and couldn't understand what it meant to him. But there was always the chance that one of the others would recognize it for what it was. The boy could not be allowed to show his friends.

__

Keep me, he forced the thought onto the consciousness of the child who had picked up the weapon. _Why show the others? They'll just want me for themselves._

"Huh?" the boy asked, as if confused that he had thought such a thing. He moved to put down the weapon, but then stopped. If this had indeed been their final battle there was no good reason why he shouldn't keep a trophy. After all, a sword like this one could have ended his life mere minutes ago. But to not show the others?

__

Hide me. Here, take up the cloth at your feet and I'll show you. A sense of wrongness filled his new body. His host knew that something was not right here, but nonetheless knelt and picked up the cloth, surreptitiously glancing over at the others to see if anyone was watching him. They were all gathered around Izzy. They wouldn't notice. Still…

And then his fingers, yet not his fingers, were working the white cloth around the weapon. The power of the little cloth became active at his will, and the sword slowly contracted to a size that could be easily hidden from the others. It would be some time before the weapon would regain its size on its own, but while he remained concealed within his new host he could afford to wait. _Revenge, _or sothe humans say, _is a dish best served cold._ "R… revenge?" his new body stammered in response.

"Hey, Tai?" A female voice reached his ears, and he felt a strong sense of love surge from his new body at the sound. _Their leader. Good. _"What have you got over there?"

"N… nothing," he snapped a response, tucking the toy weapon into his breast pocket. He moved to join the others, and Piedmon allowed himself to slip back into the darkness. Forcing his will upon the other, even for this short time had proved exceedingly difficult and tiring. _But it will become easier with time…_

That had been almost years ago. Three long years, and it had taken this long for him to finally gain a measure of control over this body, this long for the weapon to return to its full size and power. Yet perhaps the time had not been wasted. The youngest of the girls, the one who had called to him, had given up her spirit for dead on that day. His eyes alone could see it seeping from her daily. She would have already failed long ago, were it not for the foolish boy who was in the process of killing himself trying to sustain life for the two of them on his own.

Piedmon was unwilling to wait any longer. Soon the conditions would be right for the gate to open up between this world and his own. With his power and the eclipse occurring tonight, he would draw through that portal his remaining legions to join him. There were others, many others on the digital side waiting to join him at his call, and these he would use to ruin this world. But first, there was the matter of his revenge on those who had thwarted him in the first place…

"Tai? Oh, sure," answered Joe, picking up the phone. "Yeah, I'll be right over. Oh, and Tai? I think I found the answer to Gennai's questions. Well, some of them, at least," he amended. "I'll be there in about half an hour."

"Your place? About an hour?" asked Izzy when he had answered. "Sure, I'll come. Is it about the… situation?" Tai assured him that it was.

"Alone?" whispered Mimi with girlish delight. "Sure, I'd love to!" _Hah! Foolish girl. _"Just give me a little bit to get freshened up and I'll be right over."

"Well... okay," Sora answered hesitantly. "As long as you just want to _talk_ this time."

*****

"Matt!" called T.K. "Tai's on the phone. He says it's important!"

"Tai?" asked Matt, taking the phone from his little brother. Throughout the day he had been trying to reach the others to see if they had come up with any better answers than he had, but for some reason no one was answering their phones. "Oh. Everybody's over there with you? Sure, we'll be there in a few minutes. What? Uh, I'm not sure if it's a great idea to leave these two alone right now." He paused. "Well, no she hasn't gotten any worse, but… well, okay, but let's keep it short, all right?"

Matt grabbed his coat. The sun was just setting, and it looked as if it was going to rain again tonight. "T.K.? Kari?" he called.

The two came and stood before him, casting shy, sideways glances at one another. "Something's come up, and Tai needs me to come over for a while. Do you two think that you can stay here without a chaperone for a while?"

The young pair nodded a response. "I'll only be about an hour, so behave, okay? Please?"

"I promise, Matt," said T.K. sincerely. Their conversation last night had shaken him somewhat, and he still looked somewhat weak and troubled, but the smile on his face was as still as pure and as innocent as it had always been.

Matt nodded once. "Okay," he said seriously, looking at the young girl beside his brother closely. "I guess I know what your promises are worth." And with that he turned on his heel and left the room.

Neither T.K. nor Kari moved or spoke for a few moments. They had, in fact, avoided speaking much of that entire day; Kari out of concern for T.K.'s health and T.K. out of alarm at what he had learned the night before. "So…" said T.K.

"So."

"Are you, ah, hungry… or anything?"

She giggled at him. The simple sound of her voice and her expression alone made his distress vanish at an instant. This was still Kari, and he cared for her deeply. "T.K., we just ate, remember?"

Oh, yeah," he answered with nervous laughter.

"So you and Matt… talked last night."

"Uhm... yeah." His face was crimson as he remembered some of the subject matter, his eyes shifting around nervously until they found a comfortable place on the floor. "At least now I guess I understand why Izzy fell out of that chair yesterday."

The tension became noticeably heavier in the room, and Kari was sorry that she'd brought it up. "How about a movie or something?"

"Great idea!" That was actually the last thing on his mind, as he had something that he desperately wanted to discuss with her, but he _had _made a promise. Kari sat down quietly on the couch and T.K. thumbed through the videotapes on the counter, quickly bypassing anything that could in any way be construed as a romantic film. He knew that Kari didn't care for action films, so he finally settled on a comedy. He pushed it into the VCR and then moved to sit down on the couch as well. But then he couldn't seem to make up his mind how close to sit to the girl. He paused for a moment…

"T.K.?"

"I… I'm sorry, Kari," he said, sitting down right next to her as he had usually done before his "talk" with Matt. "I really don't know what's wrong with me."

She took his hand as the movie started, giving it a firm squeeze. "I understand, T.K. But you know you don't have to be nervous around me... right?"

He nodded, and turned his attention to the screen. At one point during the film a natural feeling of closeness to the girl had come over him, and he removed his hand from her grasp and draped his arm over her shoulders, holding her close. She said nothing in response, but snuggled up closer to him for the remainder of the viewing. As the tape started to wind down, the boy started to get nervous again. Matt had said that he would only be an hour, yet he had now been gone at least half again that long. _Matt, where are you? _he thought.

Then the tape stopped, and she looked up from the crook of his arm. After a moment of awkward silence, she spoke. "I have no idea what we just watched," the girl admitted.

"Me neither," T.K. responded. The crest of hope was warm on his chest. He wondered if light was doing the same thing for her. "How are you feeling?"

She smiled easily in response. "I'm fine. I'm happy. I'm here with you, T.K."

The boy didn't honestly know how to respond. _How can this be so easy for her? _What she'd said made him feel warm all over, but not uncomfortable so, and he desperately wanted a way to express what he was feeling to her without making it sound either too childish or too adult. But he just couldn't reconcile those feelings with the adult situations that Matt had explained to him, and the confusion left him completely unable to articulate his emotions.

Her eyes were soft as she continued to look at him. "T.K., you know I understand. Whether you say anything or not."

Now the boy stared back, blinking. "Kari? How... how did you know what I--?" But his stammered words were cut short by the telephone at his side as it gave a loud and urgent-sounding ring. He gave her one last quizzical look before turning to pick up the receiver, "Hello?"

"T.K.? This is Tai. Listen carefully. I need the two of you to get over here right away, understand?" His voice was hurried and, hidden behind it, T.K. thought that he could just make out the confusing sound of a suppressed giggle.

"Tai? Is everything okay with everybody? What's wrong?"

"T.K.!" the voice on the other end snapped harshly back. "Don't ask questions. You and Kari just get over here right now!" And the other phone was slammed down in the young boy's ear with an almost deafening intensity.

T.K. was taken aback, and was left holding a dead line. "What did he say?" Kari asked.

"He wants us to come over." The boy replied absently, his brow furrowed in deep thought. There had been something about Tai's voice. Something chilling and at the same time oddly familiar, yet misplaced when he tried to assign it to the older boy. He stood silently for a moment, demanding that his brain tell him what was disturbing it so.

"Well let's go," Kari said, lightly pinching his arm to get him moving and taking an old jacket of his that Matt had set aside for her. Tai had not thought to bring her a change of clothes the day before, so now she was wearing one of the outfits that the boy had outgrown as well. T.K. took a coat for himself, and they left the apartment.

"Kari?"

"Hmm?"

"Have you noticed anything strange about your brother lately?"

Kari stopped and grabbed his shoulder, turning him so that he faced her. "Why do you ask that?" she answered, her tone implying that she had noticed just such a thing.

Confirmation. "His... voice?"

The girl gave the hint of a shudder, though it certainly couldn't have been cold within the confines of the thick coat. "It's not just that, T.K. It's... well, he just doesn't _feel _like Tai anymore. It's the things that he says... or maybe just the way that he says them now. It doesn't make any sense to me, but a lot of times I feel like there's somebody else talking to me and using his mouth to do it." She looked sideways at him, somewhat sheepishly. "I guess that sounds strange, doesn't it?"

"Actually Kari, I was just going to say the same thing. And I think--" The boy paused, looking pensive. "Kari, when he's talking to you like that, who does it remind you of?"

It was a bare instant of thought later when the blood drained visibly from the girl's face, and for the first time she could put everything together while awake and lucid. "T.K.! We were going to die! I... I was sure of it! The answer to the question! I gave up! I lost--"

"What I can give you? What people can't live without? Hope?"

The crests of light and hope were beating brightly beneath the children's clothes. "Now I remember! From that last day! Tai has, he was talking to... Piedmon!"

"After we beat him?" the boy replied, but it wasn't really a question. "You accepted that Piedmon was going to kill us, and when the rest of us thought he was gone, you knew that he really wasn't. And now he's done something to Tai... right?"

Kari's eyes were firmly set, even though her lips continued to quiver. T.K. felt a strong urge to hold her as close as he had when he was pouring his life into her, but restrained himself. "Let's get over there," she said. "Matt's been gone too long, and we need warn Tai before anything else happens to him."

*****

"Tai! I don't know what you're doing, but this isn't funny any mmmph--"

Each of the five bound and gagged children stared through incredulous eyes at their friend, who now was anything but. For some peculiar and unexplained reason he had dressed himself to resemble Piedmon... at least as much as he could with the materials that he was working with. His brown hair, far from being the tangled mess that it usually was, had been gelled and slicked back. He had colored his face with some sort of make-up, and that, if nothing else, was eerie. It was almost exact, down to the last detail. But most alarming to the group was that the boy was swinging a sword that looked to be one of the clown's own right over their heads, coming closer with each and every motion.

"Oh, haven't you figured it out yet?" It was Tai's voice, but the taunting, demented pitch to it was Piedmon's alone. He clapped a hand to his cheek in mockery. "It's career day at school, and I've finally decided what I want to be when I grow up!"

Matt struggled vainly against his bonds. He had heard Tai, Piedmon…whoever he was now… call for T.K. and Kari. If all of them were at his mercy, there was no telling what he would do.

"You all may be wondering why you're still alive. We'll it's very simple, you see. I want the five of you to be the first witnesses to my new trick. One of your friends from the digital world once suggested sawing you in half. When the little two get here, I think I'll start there!"

Matt's eyes were filled with hot tears of fury, and he was pulling so hard on the ropes that bound him Joe was surprised that he hadn't hurt himself. Mimi was sobbing too, but Izzy and Sora had their heads bowed, as if resigned to their respective fates.

"Ah, once again it will be just me and them! And this time… no angel to save them!"

"Tai?" a quiet voice whispered from the doorway. _Sister_, his borrowed body recognized.

The boy clown whirled. "What? Oh goody, you're finally here. The show can finally begin!"

"What have you done with Tai, Piedmon?" demanded the defiant young boy at her side. He was keeping the girl partially shielded behind him, and both seemed ready to bolt at any second.

"Oh dear, now you've gone and spoiled the surprise. Tsk, tsk. I won't bother to ask what gave me away, but suffice it to say, he won't be back for some time!" But then the clown grimaced, and for a moment looked as though he were in pain. T.K. and Kari kept their eyes on him, though the boy did take note of the others bound at his back. Then, surprisingly, the clown spoke again with a much different voice. "Kari, run!" he gasped, waving a hand in her direction. "Get out of here!" It had definitely been Tai.

That was more than enough for the two, and they were out the door in a second. "No!" Piedmon snarled, swearing. "That wasn't supposed to happen!" He turned to the others. "Be back in a sec!" and dashed after the frightened children.

The clown leapt up and slid down the rail of the slick handrail of the stairs in front of the building, showing incredible dexterity. "It seems to me that we've done this once before!" he called after his prey in a singsong voice.

The street was almost abandoned as T.K. and Kari ran, heedless of direction. The few people that they did pass looked at them in confusion, then in alarm as the sword-wielding clown passed them. "Where do we go?" Kari struggled breathlessly.

"Somewhere with a lot of people."

"You really don't think that being around a crowd would stop him from killing us, do you? He doesn't seem to be the bashful type."

T.K. squeezed her hand tighter. "I don't think we have any choice. We can't fight him, and we can't keep running forever!" Kari nodded, and together they turned and darted into a fancy restaurant, crowded with diners.

Seconds later Tai burst in after them. The attention that the children had received following their entrance was nothing to the stares that the winded clown with the sword was getting. "Sir," said the stuffy man at the front door. "We do have a dress code here."

The boy snarled, then started to chuckle. The laughter was slow and quiet at first, but then gradually began a steady climb that peaked in a maniacal and towering crescendo. He glanced across the room at the two exhausted children. "Humans. So petty," he said. Then he removed an object from somewhere in the folds of his ridiculous costume. Looking closer, T.K. saw that it was a small watch on a chain. "This will only take a moment. Now!" he announced to the crowd. "When I count to three and snap my fingers, I want a room full of… monkeys! Am I understood? One! Two! Three!" With each number he spun the watch once, and at the cry of three and a snap of his fingers, the eyes of all of the restaurant patrons glazed over.

T.K. was startled as a well-dressed lady seated next to him climbed on top of her table and stared at him blankly. Then she gave a screech that sounded as genuine as any ape that T.K. had ever seen at the zoo, and began to thrash about in a destructive manner. Soon the man at her side followed suit. Then another man, and another, and another, until all of the restaurant patrons were engaged in the same wild behavior.

"What?" breathed an astonished T.K. "How can you--?"

Tai (or rather Piedmon) grinned wickedly. "Oh come now, come now! Everyone loves monkeys! Get them!" he cried to the people, pointing at the two.

"T.K.! Let's go!" cried the brown-haired young girl, snatching his hand and towing him out the back door, away from the advancing horde of people. Now it was her turn to lead, dragging the stunned boy along. "I guess that rules out large crowds!"

T.K. glanced over his shoulder, then looked to the side. "Thanks for not saying 'I told you so'," he panted breathlessly.

"I told you so!"

It was such a simple reply, but the fact that the girl was comfortable enough to tease him at that most uncomfortable of moments caused a warm feeling to wash over him, chasing away the chill of the rain. _I do love her!_ "Great time to figure that out," he muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing. Look! The park?"

The girl nodded an affirmative response, and together they turned into a narrow alleyway which led straight to the massive gardens. But then tragically and as luck would have it, at that moment Kari slipped in a puddle of water and fell awkwardly to the ground. "T.K.!" she cried in pain.

The boy stooped and grabbed the hand that he had dropped, trying to pull the girl to her feet. After a moment's struggle Kari did manage to get up, but then grimaced and fell against him. "T.K.! I hurt my ankle. I... can't... run anymore," she panted. The boy, panic-stricken, pulled her close and half-assisted, half-carried her further down the alleyway. But then a caustic voice calling out from behind stopped them in their tracks. "See what happens when you don't watch where you're going?" the evil clown taunted.

T.K. glanced back. Piedmon could easily be upon them in seconds at the rate that they were walking. "Kari... go!" he said, dropping her arm and shoving her away. "Even if you have to drag yourself, get to the park! Find some place to hide or… or something!" His lips quivered as though he would say something more, but then he stopped and turned his back on her, dashing back down in the direction from which they had come.

"T.K.! _No! _Please..."

But it was too late. T.K. slowed to sweep up a length of discarded steel pipe as a makeshift weapon, then continued on towards the clown. Kari fought back a sob and turned again, but she found that her leg wouldn't even support her enough to limp towards the park. How many times would these seemingly coincidental happenings keep reoccurring? How many had sacrificed themselves the first time they had fought him so that she could escape?

Piedmon actually seemed surprised when T.K. swung the steel pipe at him, though he had to have seen him coming from far away. He managed to drive the blow away with his own weapon, but not quite far enough to keep it from clipping him on the shoulder. He shrugged off the shock of it just in time to catch the boy's next swing with his own blade. "What is this?" he demanded, leering across the opposing steel weapons. "Do you think that you can beat me, you brave little soldier?"

"I don't have to beat you!" T.K. shouted defiantly, jumping back as Piedmon swung at his midsection and missed, the tip of his blade cutting through the boy's shirt. "I know you'll kill me, but when Kari gets safely away then I'll have won!"

The crest concealed beneath T.K.'s shirt had been slowly swelling into life as the boy had rushed to engage his foe and was now ablaze like a fiery brand, consuming all of his fear and weakness with its power. He had no clue how to fight against Piedmon, master fencer that the clown was, but that didn't seem to matter at the moment. He had seen Angemon fight with _his _long rod enough times to understand its mechanics, and the golden crest of Hope was almost overwhelming him with the righteous anger and strength of a true warrior.

"Ha!" cried Piedmon, joining the battle with a slash at the boy's head. T.K. ducked just in time, feeling the blade whistle only inches away from his ear. From one knee the younger boy struck the elder in the midsection, the golden strength which now permeated his blood trying desperately to make the contest even.

The two continued their desperate duel for several moments, with Piedmon becoming increasingly frustrated. This new body of his was still not one that he was used to, and the one called 'Tai' still clung to some measure of it, constantly thwarting his efforts to strike a blow to end the fight. The reverberating sound of metal on metal echoed down the alley as the edge of his sword was continually turned away by the child's unreasonable strength._ How is this possible? _he demanded of himself.

But then the clown, distracted by his anger, gave a sharp cry of pain as the little boy's weapon landed solidly upon his exposed ribs. "Damn! Enough of this!" he hissed from between clenched teeth, drawing his blade back for a final strike. _"Trump Sword!"_

T.K.'s eyes widened in alarm at the ghostly blue aura that surrounded the other's sword at the call, and hurriedly raised his pipe back to parry the blow. But now the clown's evil power was radiating through the blade, and when the two weapons collided the sword sheared off fully three quarters of the length of the pipe in an explosive shower of sparks. T.K. staggered back, looking stupidly at the smoking stump of metal in his hands as Piedmon's sword continued through to bury itself a foot deep inside the stone wall. The clown snarled, then leapt forward and smashed a forearm into the side of T.K.'s face that sent the boy sprawling backwards to land in a heap upon the ground.

"T.K.!" Kari screamed in horror, catching her hands to her mouth. A silent, breathless moment of fear passed for the girl before T.K. struggled to raise his bleeding face out of the puddle that he had landed in. And she could see... literally _see _the exhaustion and pain that was overwhelming him as he lay there.

T.K. had no clue as to why he was still alive. _Why hasn't he killed me?_ he wondered vaguely, the thought struggling through the dense fog in his head. Gathering his will, he managed to focus just enough to shepherd his eyes to the side in order to investigate. The pain and the fatigue were all just too great. And Piedmon... Piedmon was still tugging angrily at his sword, trying to free it from the brick wall.

"T.K.! Help me!" screamed Kari again. The boy's eyes flickered back in her direction, and he recognized that she had not moved even a step closer to the sanctuary of the park. The crest was now burning so furiously that his skin was almost alight with its power, but still he did not rise. There was a limit to what his shattered body could accomplish, even with the object pouring so much raw strength into it.

But Kari would never make it on her own, and all three of them knew it.

T.K. pulled himself up to his knees, and from there, slowly to his feet. He could not run to Kari... he could barely even walk. It was closer to the truth to say that he staggered to her side and feebly grabbed at her hand, pulling the girl close and leading her towards the park.

Kari's arm was draped over T.K.'s shoulders as the two limped slowly into a grassy area and collapsed beneath a tree. It was impossible for either of them to go any further, as T.K.'s body had quite simply shut down from exhaustion. The boy was only half-conscious as Piedmon finally freed his weapon with a terrible pull and begin his slow, deliberate march towards them.

"Kari... please... go," T.K. murmured, somehow finding the strength to stand and slump forward to his knees, offering his own life to buy Kari an extra moment of hers. Piedmon didn't even bother with his sword, simply brushing the exhausted boy aside with a hand. Kari gave a cry and hopped, then tripped and proceeded to crawl to T.K.'s side.

She was on her knees as she looked up at the other. "Tai! _Tai! _If you're still in there anywhere," she shouted at the form that had been her brother. "You have to know that you'll have to kill me to get at him!" And with that the girl draped herself across T.K.'s prone form, embracing him tightly.

The pouring rain was sweeping the makeup off the boy's face in rivers, letting Tai's face peek at her from behind the ghastly white facade. "Gladly," the clown smirked at her with her brother's lips, advancing steadily on them. Kari couldn't watch. She turned T.K. over and pressed her lips hard against his, the mud smeared on his face rubbing off on her cheek. And as she pulled him close, his tattered shirt fell open to reveal the golden emblem lying dormant against his bare chest. Closer, and the pink crest of Light around her neck chanced to meet in an equally warm embrace with the crest of Hope.

And then a sound like thunder, a thousand, thousand kettle drums bursting at once exploded in the clown's ears as he was thrown back away from the pair. Suddenly he was terribly cold, immeasurably moreso than the rain had felt on his skin._ So very, very cold…_

A glowing nimbus engulfed T.K. and Kari, lifting the pair up and shimmering outward from the point where Hope and Light were bonded together in a loving embrace. A beautiful, wordless song of choral voices filled the air and cleared the sky, and the worries and agony of the past two years were forgotten in a flash of almost divine light. The two children laughed and Kari cried in joy as they knelt and hugged tightly, for the moment caring for nothing but one another. There was no pain, no fatigue. There was only the two of them together and the tangible joy that held them within.

It took a few moments for the joy to peak, then a bit longer for it to slowly lower to the two back down to earth from the heaven that they'd found together. And when they finally drew away from one another their crests separated as well and they became aware of their surroundings once again. The pair found Tai, face-down and unconscious at their feet. He had fallen to the ground beside them, inside the radiant light. The children stood as one and glanced around. The sword was no longer in his grasp, but where…?

And then they saw. Outside of the radiant halo the ghost of Piedmon floated, trying desperately to grab his fallen blade. The holy aura from the crests had allowed Tai's body in, but had rejected the evil and vile corruption of the clown's soul. Then he looked, terrified, as a shadow fell across the moon. The eclipse! And he was without a body! "No! No I won't go back to that! You can't have beaten me again! _You can't have beaten me aga--!" _And then with a sound of rushing wind he was gone, blown with evil blade back through the gate to whatever awaited him on the other side of the digital crevice.

T.K.'s awkwardness about Kari fell away as he stood beside her, their hands interwoven. There was nothing more to confess to her that she had not already learned while the two of them had shared the intimate light together. She now saw and understood him as he knew her, stripped bare of all earthly facades and failings. And he was unable to be ashamed that she had seen him so. "I suppose that it's time for us to have that talk now," he said. The girl did not answer, only nodding and resting her head on his shoulder in response.


	5. Chapter V & Epilogue

Epilogue:

Piedmon's eyes gave only a flicker of life as he lay on his back, his entire being aching terribly. He had been thrown back into the damned digital world again, and he was weak… so very, very weak. His eyes seemed to have trouble focusing, and his every breath fought back against his attempt to draw it into his lungs. Everything seemed to blur in his vision. He had been beaten. Again.

"Arrrgh!" The scream that exploded from his throat echoed from the canyon walls, then died off into a weak gargling noise. "How?" he demanded, his voice raspy and failing. "Without their champions! Beaten by the babes of the group again!"

A pair of clean and sturdy white boots came to a halt inches in front of his face. With agonizing slowness the fallen clown looked up, right into the face of the youngest boy's holy champion, the Angemon. Piedmon slumped back to the ground, feeling unable to fight any longer. But then, out of the corner of his eye, he caught the blurred sight of his lone remaining sword. It was out of his reach, but it had been blown here with him. If he played his cards right…

The holy angel looked down. In one hand he carried his warrior's staff. In the other, what appeared to be a sleeping cat. The angel smiled a benediction as he looked down at Salamon. Finally, after all this time, she was getting some rest.

"So, have you come to put an end to me, warrior?" the clown asked, his hollow voice grating.

"Your end has already come." The statement was forthright. Not boastful. Not pleased. Only simple and factual.

"Yet still I am here."

"No. You are not." The clown looked at the other in confusion, the unfeeling tone of the words striking a chord of fear within his broken spirit. "You are simply an echo. A dream. A memory of what was. You were able to cheat your fate once because of the mistake of one of the children. That will not happen again." Then, with deliberate slowness and so as not to wake the sleeping feline, he placed his charge down and grabbed his holy staff with both hands, aiming at the sword which was standing upright, its blade buried in the ground.

"No!" hissed Piedmon. "You can't!" And before the Angemon could strike he leapt for the blade, fingers extended towards it. But the holy warrior only maintained the infuriatingly calm expression on his face, watching with disinterest as the hand of the clown passed right through the hilt of his weapon.

"You exist now only as spirit, Piedmon. Once your blade is gone, no one will ever hear from you or see you again. You may wander this and other worlds, seeking chances to cause mischief and harm while howling at the good that you witness and reveling in the evil, but it will avail you nothing. Those that have died have found rest, but you sought to cheat death and so for you, there will be none. Only a timeless, desperate longing for a world that will in time forget that you had ever existed."

__

"How… did this… happen?" the other howled past tears of rage, wanting nothing more than to leap at the holy creature and tear its throat out with the very nails of his fingers.

Angemon was unmoved by the clown's fury. "You underestimated them. Like others, you thought them too young to stand against you. You thought that Kari would die without the hope that you stole from her so long ago. You thought that T.K.'s strength would not be enough to sustain her, or that it would leave him broken if he could. And above all, you could not see the power within them because it is different than yours."

With those words and the spirit of the clown looking at him, mouth agape, the holy warrior swung his staff at the blade embedded in the ground. With a blinding flash it was snapped in two, and then the dark jester was gone from his sight. His small charge opened her eyes briefly and yawned. "What's happening?" she asked sleepily.

The angel smiled and picked her up, once again resting her in the bend of his arm. "Nothing to be concerned about, Salamon. Just making sure that this is all over." The other nodded briefly and went back to sleep.

The threat abated for all time, Angemon turned his gaze to the sky. Now it was time for he and Salamon, as well as T.K. and Kari, to rest and to regain their strength. He had a strong feeling that, unlike the jester, the worlds still had need of them.

*****

It was another warm, cloudy night in the real world when T.K. and Kari were finally able to be alone again. She was still limping heavily, and had spent much of the two days since the battle had been won leaning on his shoulders. Not that either of them minded. Joe had even been heard to say (before silenced by a sharp elbow from Sora) that her injury shouldn't have been bad enough to keep her from walking on it.

The pair were hand in hand now, watching the clouds drift lazily past the moon. "He still won't talk about it?" T.K. asked.

Kari shook her head. "But he apologizes to me every time we're in the same room together. The only other part that I've been able to get out of him is that he remembers all of it. Every single, terrible thing that he's done or thought during the whole two years, even if he couldn't control it. I think... I think it's done something awful to him, T.K."

The young boy nodded gravely, still staring out into nothingness. He had seen the same, haunted expression in the eyes of her older brother, and had been the recipient of many of Tai's apologies as well. But to the others, the dark-haired boy had said not a word. He had become little better than a recluse, shutting himself in his room with the shades drawn and not acknowledging the presence of his friends.

T.K. turned to look Kari in the face. Just beneath his left eye was a large, purple bruise that Piedmon's punch had brought about, and it made her heart swell with pride to remember the hopeless and heroic battle that he had fought on her behalf. It also made him look oddly more attractive to her, if she couldn't say just why. "Kari?"

"Hmm?"

"I... I wanted to talk to you about something else."

She smiled, reaching up and smoothing his golden hair out of his eyes. "I've been waiting for you to."

The corners of his mouth twitched at her touch, the feeling of her fingers in his hair being almost the most delightful sensation that he'd ever experienced. He never wanted it to end. "You'd think after everything that we'd just been through together, this would be the easy part. But it isn't. Caring for you, and holding you, and fighting for you all just seemed to come naturally. But somehow, talking about it just... isn't."

He took both of her hands, and sighed. "I want to tell you that I love you, Kari. But I don't know how. I don't want it to sound like something too stupid or babyish, like the boys at school make it sound, but I also don't want to make it sound too grown up, like what Matt told me about."

Her smile was bearing down on him with a warmth that was impossible to deny. "I think you did a fine job with it, T.K. But I'd heard it before, even if I didn't hear it quite well enough. You were saying it every time you stayed with me and kept me well without saying a word about how much it hurt you, or how tired it made you. You said it every time you told me that everything would be okay, when everybody else was telling me that it wouldn't. You risked everything for me, and it made me realize just how much I love you too."

The boy nodded, his eyes still troubled by something. "Kari...? Does that mean that I...? Are we...?"

Kari tried, unsuccessfully, to fight back a little giggle. "T.K., what? Spit it out."

T.K. was chewing on his bottom lip, his brow furrowed. "Does that mean I'm supposed to kiss you now? Or would that make you feel too weird?"

Now Kari's suppressed giggle threatened to become full-blown laughter. "Weird? T.K., I already kissed you once. Why would it make me feel weird?"

T.K. blinked in surprise. "You did?"

"You don't remember? Back at the park when Tai was standing over you?"

The boy concentrated for a moment, then shook his head sadly. She would have said he looked somewhat... huffy... as he stood there with his arms crossed. "And now I don't remember my first kiss."

Kari threw her arms around his neck and laughed gaily, the solemn mood of the night replaced one of delight that a missed kiss was now the biggest of the little boy's concerns. She felt like dancing with him, if only her ankle weren't still so sore. But then she forced a formal look onto her face. "Yes, T.K. You're supposed to kiss me now."

The boy glanced over at her with a clever smile, and his hair was in his eyes again. But then it didn't matter as he pulled her close and hugged her tightly, his nose pressing just to the side of her own as his lips brushed gently against hers.

Kari pulled the boy even closer as he broke off the kiss, pressing her face into the curve of his neck and finding it impossible to speak, so deep was the emotion on the moment. And as she looked up she found that there were tears in her eyes and that some had fallen on T.K.'s shirt. But none of that mattered. She didn't need to say anything; he knew how she felt. And she didn't mind crying; he had seen her as she really was, and that was really at that was important at the moment. Just the two of them... safe and together.

*****

But back at his house, Tai had no inclination of his sister's newfound joy. He sat alone in the corner of his bedroom with his knees pulled up against his chest, where even the light from the moon could not enter through his window to reach him. The boy was trembling violently; deluged with guilt and horror, terror and self-hatred. There was a look in his eyes that was haunted and said that he was reliving each of the last three years repeatedly in his mind.

A doctor might have said that he was in shock, as he neither moved nor spoke. He was trapped in a nightmare that had come to life and was replaying itself over and over again in his mind. But for him there was no consolation, and no waking to escape the dream that had become reality. And though he made no sound, as he sat a single tear formed in the corner of his eye and ran unchecked down his cheek... a tear that aimed straight for the boy's broken heart.

__

To be continued...

Again, thanks to my sister Cas for turning me on to this site, and much more thanks to kale for putting up with me and (finally) allowing me to post his writings.


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